Gaining and Losing

For a year, I worked out on a regular basis, saw a personal trainer, but the real way I lost weight was by decreasing eating to once a day, with maybe a snack or two unless I was at work.

Since then I’ve gained 40 back.

First, I got diagnosed with Morton’s Neuromas. They are fibrotic growths in between your toes. I have them on both feet. They cause searing nerve pain through your feet. Because I’ve been warned to avoid surgery at all costs due to benign hypermobility syndrome, so I ended up getting 3 rounds of injections into each foot, between my third and fourth toes.

Drug users don’t even go in between the toes, you guys.

So I had to stop working out. The pain was too much. I got depressed again, I started eating too much again.

Then I agreed to have some corns removed from my left foot. This was before my primary care diagnosed the hypermobility syndrome. The corns took 3 months to heal. Working was excruciating and I still get nerve pain where they were removed. Never again.

A few weeks ago I started trying to walk more to drop weight and hopefully not starve myself. I had to walk 15,000 steps a day, work out for an hour every other day, but I finally started to lose weight.

Then my foot gave out. I’ve been getting steroid shots into the arch of my foot and once again I’m under instructions to walk as little as possible.

I hear people talking about fat acceptance and learning to love your body, but I truly hate my body. I’m already covered in scars, and while I got thinner for a little while, now I’m fat again, too. I like my body better when it’s thinner. I feel like I’m never going to be able to lose weight. My metabolism is so slow. I literally have to barely eat and workout daily as well as take an hour or two hour walk daily on the days I don’t work to lose weight.

To add to it, I have anxiety related to dieting. Even though I’m more comfortable in my body when it’s thin, when I start losing weight, I start to have huge amounts of anxiety and I want to eat. I mean, I want to eat until I feel like I’m going to explode. It’s not that I don’t have the ability stop feeling hungry, I just feel the need to constantly be eating. I wish it made sense.

This fight with weight and depression. I see a shrink. I take my meds. They help more than they hurt.

I don’t have to go to school full time, I have 3 part time semesters left. Hopefully not having as much school work will mean I can dig out of this awful place I am, get some weight off, and get it to stay off. I think it could, if I didn’t feel so anxious when I feel the slightest bit hungry.

I really, truly, wish I understood my brain. I know that part of my food anxiety probably comes from not always having enough to eat when I was young, and when I was out on my own. Knowing why something exists doesn’t really make it go away.

Ooof. That’s a lot of stuff you can’t change tangled up with on-going anxiety and depression. There’s no easy fix. I don’t think you’re really looking for advice here, but what about using a stationary bike or swimming instead of walking? In theory, at least the swimming, should be lower-impact on your feet. Try to remember that even 20 minutes of exercise will help a little, even if it isn’t ideal. It might reduce that feeling of powerlessness a little at least.

First off I would like to say fantastic blog!
I had a quick question which I’d like to ask if you don’t mind.
I was curious to find out how you center yourself and clear your head prior to writing.
I have had a tough time clearing my mind in getting my thoughts
out. I truly do take pleasure in writing but it just seems like
the first 10 to 15 minutes are lost just trying to figure out how to begin.
Any suggestions or tips? Kudos!

Honestly, I write to clear my head. What I do is start writing, and then get to the meat of the entry. Often, I end up deleting the first paragraph of a blog entry. Once I’m done, I go back to the start of the entry to make sure everything matches and links together. Sometimes I take out a piece for a future entry if it’s good but doesn’t match.

And if my head won’t clear? I’ll make some notes, save the draft, and come back later.